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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A philanthropist best known for selling millions of dollars worth of musical instruments at a discount to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra has fled to Cuba to avoid tax fraud charges, authorities said Wednesday.

A federal judge issued an arrest warrant for animal publishing tycoon Herbert Axelrod after he failed to show up for an arraignment on charges that he hid income from the Internal Revenue Service.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Guadagno said Axelrod's yacht was docked in Cuba and that the multimillionaire was staying at the Marina Hemingway, a four-star resort in Havana. The United States has no extradition treaty with Cuba.

Guadagno said Axelrod, 76, was aware of the charges against him and the court hearing scheduled for Wednesday. An Axelrod associate told the U.S. Attorney's Office that Axelrod recently traveled from Zurich, Switzerland, to Cuba and had no intention of returning to this country, Guadagno told U.S. District Court Judge Garrett Brown. Guadagno refused to identify the Axelrod associate.

Attorney Michael Himmel, who had been representing Axelrod, said he had notified Axelrod of the indictment and Wednesday's court hearing, Guadagno told the judge. But Himmel, who did not attend Wednesday's proceeding, said that he had not been retained by Axelrod for the tax case.

Himmel said during a telephone interview that he represented Axelrod during the grand jury process but was not retained for Wednesday's hearing. Himmel said he does not know where Axelrod is.

Axelrod was charged with using Swiss bank accounts to hide income from the IRS related to the publishing company he owned that specialized in books on animals and pets.

The indictment said that between 1990 and 1996, Axelrod gave an executive of his publishing company $700,000 in bonus payments, deposited into Swiss bank accounts.

When the executive was fired he was given $950,000 in severance. Of that, $775,000 went into the Swiss accounts, the indictment said. It said Axelrod told the employee the IRS could not obtain records of the Swiss accounts and told him not to disclose their existence.

Axelrod was charged with conspiracy to defraud the IRS and aiding the filing of a false tax return.

Guadagno said Axelrod recently sold his home in Deal, N.J., for $6.5 million and that over the last year he had liquidated a number of other properties, including several in Key West, Fla. The value of the other properties was not known, the assistant U.S. attorney said.

In February 2003, Axelrod sold 30 rare Italian string instruments he had collected, which were valued at $50 million, to the NJSO for $18 million. Axelrod originally wanted to sell the violins to the orchestra for $25 million, but eventually settled for the smaller amount when officials couldn't come up quickly with the higher amount.